Reflections of Memory
by C.Isaac
Summary: Laura dreams of the past and imagines the future in a place where time holds no sway. Battlestar Galactica / Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles crossover.


**Reflection of Memory**

Reality ceased to be Laura Roslin's home long ago.

Memories fill the times between sleeping as her body finishes degenerating around her.

She no longer knows what is truth or illusion.

Only chamalla keeps the edge off the pain now. Even with that, the agony sings through her body with a harmony that consciousness only occasionally resists.

She does not know if he is truth or figment anymore when he visits and holds her pale, palsied hand and whispers that they are holding out. That they keep going, but nothing changes.

I feel like I'm evaporating, she says to him.

Like my mother, he says to her.

Why do you keep coming? she asks of him.

You remind me of her, he says.

Your mother.

Yes.

And he leaves after that. She does not know how long until he returns. Minutes? Days? Months? It doesn't matter to her anymore. It gives her moments with which to remember the smell of her husband's aftershave. To see Apollo's smile and hear Starbuck's laugh.

And to wonder why she is the one that is still alive.

***

He is Apollo. He is Zeus. He is Ares.

The man they find is none of these, but the best of all of them, and Artemis stands at his side. Always silent, always vigilant. Small, yet frightening beyond words.

When he speaks, his words are thunder.

He stands against Hephaestus' armies and bends them to his will.

Even Tigh listens.

***

They find survivors in holes and sewers and caves.

Earth is not empty nor just filled with machines. Their god brings them forth and they praise him. He had protected them against the machines and now he promises wrath from the sky against them.

Her husband agrees.

Earth is their last home. The only place they can be safe.

But they must fight for it.

***

Desperation, the god of earth tells her. That was meant for me.

Sorrow slips down her cheeks as she watches a comet rip through the night's sky. Her husband's chariot falls from the heavens to crash down upon the barren earth.

A citybuster, he describes it. More powerful than any tactical weapon used in war. A weapon with slaughter its only goal.

They meant it for when they found me, he says.

The Galactica's death is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen.

***

They should have known.

A human on the wasted earth. Galactica's crew is so happy to find one that they bring the dour, quiet man aboard.

He learns their language so fast. They laugh when he does not understand their jokes and he smiles without anything reflecting in his eyes.

She wants to meet him, and goes to see him in the cafeteria where the pilots that brought him aboard are.

You are the president? he asks.

Yes, she says.

Eyes glow red as he grabs a weapon. Racetrack steps in front and dies a hero. Or was it Hotdog? No, it was Kara. She remembers Sam screaming, now.

Seventeen men and women die before twisted scrap is all that's left. Laura once remembered all their names.

They should have known.

***

Machines crawl across the earth now. Hunt and kill and destroy.

That's all they do.

But they are not perfect. A signal gets out. Faint and imperfect against the cacophony of hate.

One man's voice. A plea and a warning.

The machines know they fly through the night sky. This is their world, and humanity is not welcome here anymore.

But it can change.

It must change.

They follow the sounds of the voice straining against the darkness, and what they find defies belief.

***

When he returns, he has a wheelchair. It hurts when he pulls her into it and she cries from the pain. She slips as he pulls her down and bangs her wrist on the side of her bed. It swells and she bites her lip.

Where are we going?

He says nothing to her until the huge room full of ozone and lightning. His Artemis stands perfect and nude before them, face empty of fear or care.

I've lied to you, Laura, he says. It's rare that he says her name anymore. As if he does not want her to be her.

Pain makes it hard to focus, but she understands that, and asks him why.

We are losing this war. Something's changed. This is not what my mother told me it would be like.

What are you going to do?

I've never told anyone this except for her. This has happened before. It will happen again.

Those words narrow Laura's attention and she stares at him, forcing herself to remain straight in the chair even with the pain threatening to overwhelm her. She asks him what he means.

There is a way to go back and fix the mistakes and save your worlds and mine. I wanted you to see the first to go back. One for this world and one for each of yours. Thirteen trips to save us all, he says.

John, what are you going to do? His name feels strange on her lips. It always does. As if naming him makes him a mere mortal.

Give the world hope, he says as he presses a button.

The lightning flashes and thunder roars as Artemis glows with light. It sucks the air and the very substance from the room as concrete shudders and the power of the gods themselves swirls around the guardian of earth's future.

Horrible beauty fascinates and pulls at her. Sucking her soul towards the power of creation itself as it tears time asunder and sends man's greatest weapon backwards through history.

She smiles as she lets go, because this world no longer needs her.

For there is hope.


End file.
